Our guest today is Anubha Bhonsle, recipient of the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, 2009 and the author of the extensively researched book on one of the most ignored state of India titled “Mother, Where is My Country?”. She also received the Chameli Devi Award for Outstanding Woman Media Person in the year 2014 for her body of work. Anubha Bhonsle has been a founding member of CNN-IBN (now CNN-News18). In her role as Executive Editor, she led the channels’ coverage of major news events reporting from the ground and has anchored several flagship news, prime time discussions and documentaries.

In the first part of her interview, she shared her story about how she began her career in journalism. This is the second part of her interview.

Anubha Bhonsle’s book “Mother, Where is my Country?” published in January, 2016 is a result of 10 years of research in Manipur. It covers stories of injustice suffered by the people and violation of human rights amongst others.

The book is centered around Irom Sharmila and covers her life, goals and her struggle against the draconian law, Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The iron lady ended her 16 years long hunger strike on 9th August, 2016 to take up the fight from another angle. Anubha Bhonsle expresses her views about this new turn of events in this episode. There has been wide media coverage about the people of Manipur shunning Irom Sharmila’s decision to end her fast, but very little has been covered about the people who have come out in support of her. Anubha Bhonsle says that it took Irom Sharmila more courage to take up the decision to end her fast than she did when she started the hunger strike. She says that although this is not a positive situation, it can be taken as an opportunity for the people in other parts of the country to know more about the ignored state of Manipur and also be a turning point for anyone interested in the anti-AFSPA campaign. Anubha Bhonsle also shares about the experience of her time in Manipur from the perspective of mingling with the people, food and places she has visited. We talk about some of the challenges she faced when she came to Manipur doing her research going from one place to the other.

About FindingTheVoices:

Born and raised in the violence-torn landscape of Manipur, I have a vision to promote and spread inspiring, empowering, educative & entertaining stories. I believe that we can create contents bringing the positive side of Manipur. I believe we can do this together by finding the voices, voices which needs to be heard and shared, voices of our own people, people of Manipur and well-wishers of Manipur. I believe that these voices will bring a change and connect all of us.